Kaszab Zoltán (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 66. (Budapest 1974)

Szujkó-Lacza, J.: Possibilities and problems of the electronic data process of flowering plant herbarium specimens

tion with herbariums are available in Hungarian works on quantitative ecology (PRÉCSÉNYI, FEKETE & SZUJKÓ — LACZA 1967; SZÜJKÓ — LACZA, FEKETE 1971; FEKETE & SZUJKÓ — LACZA 1973), and phenometry (SZUJKÓ - LACZA & FEKETE 1973). It is attempted in this paper to make a composition of data — by considering the needs of above mentioned disciplenes — which are available or at least are expected to be available on the specimen of species which is mounted on the herbarium sheet and on the label. Schematic design of a data card offering possibility for the multiaspectual processing of a herbarium specimen: 1. specimen, perennial or annual; 2. life-form of the specimen (on the basis of the life-from system recommended by RAUNKIAER in 1907) ; 3. mode of nutrition of the specimen in a particular developmental stadium (autotroph, heterotroph, symbiont, semi- or whole-parasite) ; 4. mode of reproduction (generative or vegetative or both) ; 5. architecture, qualitative and quantitative morphology of the individual plant ; 6. stages, stadiums, phenophases of the individuel (discussed later and in SZUJKÓ-LACZA & FEKETE 1973) ; 7. number of stool-or side-shoots (but only in the case of a whole specimen!) ; 8. morphological characteristics of the family (in the literature this is simply substituted by the family name if the questions do not pertain to special family characters, conf. MEADOW 1. c.) ; 9. morphological characteristics of the genus (this is also frequently substituted by the genus name for reasons under point 8) ; 10. name of the species; 11. is the individual a type specimen or not (if so, the type category is holo-, co-, syn-, iso etc. type) ; 12. chromosome number of the type specimen (it is often available in the literature only) : 13. synonymous names (the same applies to this as to 12) ; 14. popular name (generally only in taxonomic keys or manuals available, and only seldom on herbarium sheets) ; 15. site of collecting, -locus; 16. or the site of cultivation; 17. determination of the geographic location of the site of collection (height above sea level or altitude, latitude) ; 18. geographical characterization of the site, or perhaps the characterization of the ground thereof; 19. habitat ; 20. time of collection; 21. name of the collector; 22. name of the identifier; 23. catalogue number or signe of the specimen (the DALLA TORRE & HARMS number is usually not marked separately on the herbarium sheets) ; 24. name of the herbarium in wich the specimen is available (in the case of purchased or exchanged specimens the name of the previous owner is also indicated) ; 25. notes of the collector resp. determiner. Characteristics introduced under points 1 to 9 are to be found on the mounted plant specimen, and those under points 10 to 25 on the labels. The characteristics under the first 9 points are usually very complex plant properties, while the data on the labels, apart from those ones listed under number 18 and 19, are usually unequivocal. Disintegration and weighing of the characteristics under point 5 belong to the spheres of taxonomy, morphology and quantitative morphology (to their EDP treatment examples, though not in every respect satisfactory ones are to be found in the literature cited above). Those mentioned under points 8 and 9 might be interpreted to imply that theoretically every individual bears those morphological features which characterize the family and genus, and besides them also the species characters. In the case of an unknown taxon, by relying involuntarily on the principle of successive approximation, the family and genus characters are conspicuous, i.e. we come to the category of the species inside these categories, resp. to the separation of such characters or character-complexes which are characteristic of this particular species only, and are easy to demonstrate selectively on this one specimen. The other way round, the simultaneous consideration of the